Shaoxing

Shaoxing sits on the south bank of the Qiantang River estuary, on the southern shore of Hangzhou Bay in northeastern Zhejiang. It borders Ningbo to the east, Taizhou to the southeast, Jinhua to the southwest, and Hangzhou to the west. According to the 2020 census, the city’s population was 5,270,977; the built-up area shared with Hangzhou—covering the urban districts of Keqiao, Yuecheng, and Shangyu—held 2,958,643 people, while the entire Hangzhou–Shaoxing metro area totaled 13,035,326.

Notable figures from Shaoxing include the calligrapher Wang Xizhi, the parents of Zhou Enlai, the writer Lu Xun, and the educator Cai Yuanpei. The city is known for Shaoxing wine, meigan cai (preserved vegetables), and stinky tofu, and was featured on the documentary *A Bite of China*. Its local opera form, Yue opera—sung in the local dialect—is second in popularity only to Peking opera. In 2010, Shaoxing marked the 2,500th anniversary of its founding.

Economically, the city’s manufacturing centers on textiles, electronics, and energy-efficient lighting. Zhejiang province has the fifth-highest per capita GDP in China, and Shaoxing itself ranks 18th nationally by GDP per capita. According to *Southern Weekly*’s Cities Comfort Index, Shaoxing was named China’s most comfortable city for four consecutive years, thanks to a rare combination of high incomes, relatively affordable housing, and short commutes.

The name “Shaoxing” was first used in 1131 AD, during the Southern Song dynasty. It comes from the reign period of Emperor Gaozong of Song and is a poetic phrase meaning “inheriting the imperial task and resurging to prosperity.”

Modern-day Shaoxing lies north of the Kuaiji Mountains, which were an important center for the Yue people during the Spring and Autumn period. Chinese legend links the area to Yu the Great, founder of the Xia dynasty. Around the early 5th century BC, during the reign of King Goujian of Yue, his people began settling the alluvial plain north of the hills. After gaining freedom from captivity in Wu, Goujian ordered his advisor Fan Li to build a large triangular fortification in what is now Yuecheng District. After Yue conquered Wu, its royal court moved to Wu’s capital (modern Suzhou), until Chu conquered Yue in 334 BC.

In 222 BC, the Qin Empire established Kuaiji Commandery, with its seat in Wu (which then took the name Kuaiji). The First Emperor visited the town in 210 BC, climbing Mount Kuaiji (now Mount Xianglu) to sacrifice to Yu’s spirit. The commemorative stele he erected is lost, but Sima Qian saw it during his 1st-century BC tour of historical sites and recorded it in his *Records of the Grand Historian*. By the Later Han, lands between the Yangtze and Hangzhou Bay had their own commanderies, and Kuaiji stretched along the bay’s south shore from Qiantang (modern Hangzhou) to the East China Sea. The area’s capital—present-day Yuecheng—was called Kuaiji until the 12th century, when it was renamed Shaoxing during the Song dynasty. Yu’s mausoleum at its present site dates to the 6th-century Southern dynasties.

Under the Ming and Qing dynasties, the area was a prefecture with eight counties: urban Kuaiji and Shanyin, plus rural Yuyao, Zhuji, Xiaoshan, Shangyu, Xinchang, and Cheng (or Sheng). From the later Ming through the Qing, Shaoxing was known for its network of native sons in the government bureaucracy, cooperating out of native-place loyalty. Besides those who became officials through the civil-service exams, the Shaoxing clique included county-level jail wardens, unofficial legal specialists (muyou) working privately for officials, and clerks in Beijing’s Six Boards—especially the Boards of Revenue and Punishment. These legal experts, called Shaoxing shiye (Shaoxing masters), were indispensable advisers to local and regional officials, whose Confucian education left them needing detailed knowledge of the Qing legal code to judge civil and criminal cases. Coming from the same gentry class as the officials, the experts were expected to follow the ethical rule of Wang Huizu, Shaoxing’s most famous muyou: “If not in accord [with your employer], then leave.”

During the Taiping Rebellion, Shaoxing was home to militia leader Bao Lisheng, who organized armed resistance in his village of Baochun. A martial arts expert, he recruited thousands by claiming supernatural powers. After a months-long siege, Baochun fell to the Taiping.

Under the Republic of China in the early 20th century, the prefecture was abolished, and the name Shaoxing was applied to a new county combining former Shanyin and Kuaiji. Today, Shaoxing is a municipality with a smaller land area than its Ming-Qing prefecture, having lost Xiaoshan county to Hangzhou on the west and Yuyao county to Ningbo on the east.

The prefecture-level city administers three districts, two county-level cities, and one county.